A Different Kind of Hero
by Ceilidh of One
Summary: DISCONTINUED Sequel to DKP. Draco and Harry were turned into vampires. The only way for them become human again is to kill their Mistress, the vampiress Niles, who’s nowhere to be found. Who is Adyn, the child claiming to be Niles’ daughter?
1. Prologue

_**A Different Kind of Hero- By Ceilidh Clemens, Characters © JKR. Sequel to A Different Kind of Pureblood.**_

**_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_** This IS a Harry Potter fanfic, although you don't see a canon character for a few pages. The introductory chapter was largely (VERY largely) inspired by the prologue of _Undead and Unemployed_ by Mary Janice Davidson, an awesome book I recommend to all vampire lovers.

**Chapter 1- Prologue

* * *

**

The wreck was baffling. The car in question had crashed into a telephone booth at a very slow speed beside an old alley. A large object hit it from above, collapsing the top of the car. Moments later, the car sustained a heavy blow on the side that forced the compact to roll. The source of these damages could not be located, thought the driver claims she crashed into the booth while yawning.

The driver, a sixty-two-year-old Caucasian nurse by the name of Mary Sue McDonald, was found waiting beside the demolished vehicle with minor injuries. McDonald denied the offer of hospital care and consented to be taken to the precinct for an interview. The interview was conducted by detective Conner Wilcox.

The driver was proven to be free of drugs and other mind-impairing substances prior to the interview.

* * *

"Okay, the tape recorder's going." Wilcox tapped the black case and set it on the table, surveying the woman sitting at the other end of the table. Her hair was blond with a bit of gray and bound in a tight bun. She wore revolting purple pants under a crisp pink shirt with purple flowers, her nurse outfit that she had been wearing during the time of the wreck. There were several bloodstains on her legs, but the woman still went on strong. Her lips were pulled tight as she glared silently at Wilcox behind bifocal glasses. "Before we get started, would you like a drink? Tea or coffee?" 

Mrs. McDonald narrowed her owlish eyes at the young yet balding man in front of her, who was dressed in a clean gray suit. "No thank you, Detective, I gave up caffeine years ago."

"But you've had such a rough evening," Wilcox pressed. His voice was rather grunt-like, matching his large and stubble-ridden chin. "Are you sure you don't want something to calm your nerves? We do have decaf." Mary Sue McDonald scowled deeply and wrinkled a twitchy nose at him.

"When I say no, I mean 'no' and you'd best listen the first time!" Wilcox's eyes darkened for a moment, but the stubborn woman was only given a tense smile in response.

"Alright, no drinks then." The man's beady eyes took a swift glance at tape recorder. "Now, if you'd kindly retell the events of this evening?"

The woman gave a barking laugh, leaning towards the detective with a mad glint in her eyes. "Well, I did hear they're having one hell of a storm off in India," she whispered conspiratorially. "And I had a mighty interesting night at work. There was this fellow in emergency care who'd swallowed a dozen metal nail files; what he was thinking, I'll never know."

Wilcox's beefy fingers clenched into fists. He knew he'd been challenged, but he dared not bother the woman who'd come on her own volition. "Mrs. McDonald, I meant the events that lead you into this room." This only delighted the woman more; she clapped twice and leaned back in her cheap metal chair with a great wicked grin.

"That's more like it; specifics!" she chuckled. "I won't answer to a man who can't even ask the right question."

"Mrs. McDonald," Wilcox hissed. "The events. _Please."_

"Don't rush me!" the woman snapped.

_I always work really late evenings, you see, since I'm a nurse. This was a particularly late night. That man, the one who'd gone and swallowed a dozen nail files? He kept us busy until about eleven. I normally go to bed at ten, you see; so, when got ready to get set to go home, I was dead on my feet with exhaustion. There was a rather long light near 7th where I nearly fell asleep at the wheel… It was about two block later that I crashed into the phone booth._

"What made you crash into the phone booth?" Wilcox interrupted, stroking his thick, whiskery chin with his large hands.

"I'm getting there, you impudent old prune! Do you think rushing me is going to do you any good?" Mrs. McDonald admonished, swelling menacingly within her flowery purple nurse uniform, grey eyes flashing. "Whoever thought you were fit to do these interrogations- sorry, _interviews_- must have been having delusions about you adequacy!" A muscle jumped in Wilcox's stubble-ridden cheek. The woman smirked and leaned back in her seat, diminishing again to a regular old lady.

"Questionings," Wilcox rumbled. Mrs. McDonald's face fell slightly.

"Excuse me?"

"Questionings," Wilcox repeated. "Not interviews. Not interrogations. _Questionings._" Mrs. McDonald bit her tongue and glared at the man. His lips twitched into a smile; he'd taken control of the conversation. "Please continue."

"Alright," McDonald grunted.

_I crashed because I yawned, simple enough. I yawned at the wrong time. I took my hands off the wheel on accident. My car hasn't had an alignment in years. It swerved straight into that damn booth._

McDonald fell silent.

"That must have been terrifying," Wilcox said stiffly, more for the purpose of encouraging her to go on then to actually comfort her. McDonald glowered at the man without any pretence of liking.

"Of course it was. How could it not be? I got knocked face first into my steering wheel!" Wilcox sank into his chair, his face bearing the expression of a man slapped by his wife. "And that little car was cramped enough before it smashed in on itself. I had to cut the damn airbag open with a knife just to make it stop suffocating me. Yes, it was terrifying!"

She fell silent once more, smoothing her purple pants and allowing Wilcox enough calm to sit upright. A blond hair fell out of her bun and into her face, but she did nothing to remove it. Conner Wilcox leaned forward, watching the nurse's face. "I was under the impression that the initial collision only damaged your car's bonnet," the detective pondered suspiciously. "What hit you from above and how did your vehicle end up on its side?"

McDonald's eyes brightened and she mimed a clap of glee. An opening had been spotted. "If you would shut your yapper and let me decide on the best way to put it, you might actually hear those answers before Christmas!" she laughed wickedly. Wilcox ground his yellowed teeth and said nothing. A few seconds passed where the sound of the tape recorder seemed loud enough to overcome internal monologue. "There's a good lad." To Wilcox's immense relief (as well as surprise) Mary Sue continued her tale.

_I was mighty shocked when I crashed into that horribly placed phone booth. I was also mighty tired and as soon as I got the airbag out of my face I wanted to say, "to hell with reporting this!" and go to sleep there and then. I did just that._

"You went to sleep inside your car while it was still grinding into the phone booth? Do you take any sleep medications?" Conner asked quickly.

"Do I look like a tweaker?" McDonald sniped. "I had a bad day, and I was tired, so I went to sleep! I didn't flee the crime scene or anything!" Wilcox subsided, but Mary Sue McDonald was still glowering at his balding head through her bifocals.

To the detective's immense annoyance, she stopped talking once more. Not wanting to push things, Wilcox stared at the spinning tape recorder, tapping his beefy fingers on the crisp grey desk. The woman still stared at him with annoyance. "Would you like something to drink?" the man eventually asked again, his voice level.

The woman's thin lips twitched into a smile. "Why yes, I would like some lemon soda and whiskey," she requested waspishly. Wilcox proceeded to bite his lip and snarl quietly, shoulder shaking slightly with masked restraint.

"Madame," he bit out, "You came here to report some suspicious behaviour and a car accident. Even considering your tale so far, I've began to… _suspect_ that allowing you into this building was an _accident_. Do _not_ waste my time. I want to go to bed tonight just as much as you do." The blond sobered.

"I've just been having an internal struggle," the woman stated. "I'm not certain I should tell you anything at all. I was threatened, you see, and if I keep my mouth shut I might never see the consequences." Wilcox's shoulders froze in place, though his face went slack and his fists unclenched.

"Threatened? By a _telephone booth?"_ Wilcox asked incredulously. McDonald's rosy cheeks puffed.

"No, you dunce! By the wizard-vampires!"

Neither moved in the long silence that followed.

"Wizard-vampires," Conner numbly repeated, eying the woman as if she'd gone mad.

"Wizard-vampires," Mary Sue reassured him. "I'm not on drugs, and I'm not nutters. They're the ones doing the suspicious behaviour, they're the ones who threatened me, and they're the reason my car is still upside down with a boulder-sized dent on the top."

"Are you really…?" Conner laughed, trailing off, shaking his head, completely dumbfounded.

"Serious? Yes! And I would explain, if you'd stop interrupting!" Mrs. McDonald fumed. "I've already said enough to put me in the asylum, so I might as well finish the bloody story, if only just to make you stop asking!" Still shaking his head and staring at the woman, Conner Wilcox nodded and allowed her to continue.

_I woke up at about four in the morning- a bit surprising, considering the traffic and how unlikely it is that nobody would pull over to see the wreck. Before you ask- don't look at me like that! I knew it was four because I have a watch. I was still miffed and annoyed, but I figured I'd dilly-dallied enough. I was going to get out of the car and find a working phone, but then I saw… **them**._

"Them?" Wilcox pressed.

"Well, _her_, actually," McDonald corrected herself, eyes turned to the side and gazing at nothing through bifocal lenses as she thought. "I only saw one to begin with, then I saw the other two."

_The one I saw first was a little girl; at least, that's what she looked like. I saw her out my right window. She was standing on top of that old broken-down Church._

"Could you describe her?" Wilcox pressed, glancing meaningfully at the tape recorder. Mary Sue bit her thin lip, smearing her pale pink lipstick.

"Of course. I don't think I'll ever forget any of them."

_This girl was thin, black, and she dyed her hair bright orange. Long hair, by the way, very long, and it must have been straightened. She looked to be about the age nine. Oh, but you should have seen her eyes, she had these great orange eyes, with cat-like slit pupils, and they glowed in the dark; I knew right away that she couldn't be human. She was dressed up in the funniest clothes I'd ever seen. One shoe was yellow, huge, maybe ten sizes too big. I think it was her left… No, it was her right. She had a big yellow T-shirt over orange running shorts._

"Any identifiable marks?" Wilcox asked slowly. His expression had worn from anger to shocked disbelief to polite interest.

Mrs. McDonald leaned back in her hard metal chair, crossing her pink flowery arms in thought. "Well, there wasn't any logo to be seen on her shirt, but damn if the orange hair and freaky eyes aren't identifiable." Wilcox frowned to himself for a moment before peering back up at her.

"And what was she doing on the roof?"

"Staring."

"At what?"

"Me."

_She just kept staring at me for the longest time. She was such a funny sight to see, I couldn't help it but stare back. When she looked away, I just about fainted, because I hadn't been breathing. I don't know if that was her doing or mine, but it wasn't pleasant. It took me a minute to catch my breath again before I looked up and saw what had distracted her._

_A couple boys had walked out from the alley between the church and the house next to it. I say boys… No, they were just as human as she was, and they were much older by appearance. They were holding hands like any couple would._

"Description?" Wilcox repeated. Mary Sue shook out of her spacey storytelling zone and glared at him.

"They were both whiter than the moon," Mrs. McDonald swore. "They were about seventeen, I'd say. They did a lot of laughing, and I was close enough to see they had fangs. One of them was a wiry little thing with pretty black hair and big bottle-green eyes. He wore…" The woman's eyes glazed over as she tried to recall correctly. "He wore black pants, a green shirt, and this fancy black robe with green cuffs."

"Was this a bathrobe?" Wilcox questioned, watching Mary Sue's face.

She shook her head. "No, silk or something like it. It was the kind you'd see a kid wear on Halloween, but it wasn't paper-thin, and it looked like he'd been wearing it a lot."

"And the other boy?"

"He was taller." Mary reflectively tapped her long nails on the table. "Platinum blond hair. And he had class, he had _style_. He wore all them tight black clothes with fancy silver snake patterns. Lots of silver jewellery, mostly snakes and skulls. His robe was definitely ten steps beyond your Halloween costumes; it almost looked like a black kimono that hadn't been tied shut." After a moment's hesitation, Mrs. McDonald leaned toward Conner Wilcox, letting him see her serious expression. "The silver dragons were moving."

Detective Wilcox stared at her blankly for a moment, cleaned his ear with a finger, and asked, "Pardon?"

"The patterns on his clothes were moving," McDonald repeated. "It wasn't just moving cloth. There were two silver dragons on his black robe, and they were chasing each other around his body. It was like watching kittens play."

Utterly flabbergasted, Wilcox slumped in his chair, staring at the woman's face. "You're serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious! I told you, they weren't human!"

"Did their clothes lead you to believe they were… wizard-vampires?" Wilcox demanded, sitting upright one more and frowning his stubbled chin at the woman. "Perhaps his robes were made of some fancy holographic fabric? I heard they were working on something like that."

"No," McDonald cut in. "No, I also thought it was a fancy holographic fabric. I didn't think they were human, but the fabric didn't phase me too much at the time. It was the things they said and did."

The balding Wilcox quickly glanced at some papers that he pulled from a folder on top of the table. "Did they have any distinguishing marks aside from their clothes?"

"As a matter of fact, yes!" Mary Sue blurted excitedly, her eyes lighting up. A bit of greying blond hair fell from her bun and gave her a truly wild look. "The one with green eyes had a scar on his forehead, shaped a bit like a lightning bolt." Wilcox frowned, pulled a pen from his pocket, and wrote something on his paper.

"And the other man?"

"He had a tattoo on his forearm," Mrs. McDonald continued. "Actually, they both had the same tattoo. It was black, shaped rather like a skull with a noodle coming out of it's mouth… or perhaps it was a snake? I didn't see it very clearly, I only got to see them when they took their robes off later."

Wilcox began to chew at the tip of his pen. "How old did these tattoos look?"

"Almost brand new. The lines were still crispy and clean. Why, does that matter?"

"It might be possible to ask around local tattoo parlours to identify them," Wilcox nodded. "Assuming that they need identified at all. You're getting so riled! I'm making some decaf, whether you like it or not." He slid his chair back and marched purposefully toward the machine in the corner of the room. Mrs. McDonald watched every fold of his grey suit as he grabbed a cup and prepared the machine. "Do continue. As long as the tape hears you the first time, I don't need to." McDonald nodded complacently.

_The boys were about twenty feet away from me when they stopped and leaned on the church fence for a breather. I stayed still in my car; for some reason, I really didn't want them to notice me the way the girl on the roof did. They didn't seem to notice her either. Especially when she called out, "Have you found her yet?"_

"I assume she had a human voice?" Detective Wilcox chuckled to himself, banging on the coffee machine that was taking too long.

"No," McDonald groaned. "She had a parrot voice. _Of course she sounded human!_ I'm under the impression that most real monsters do. Anyway, she yelled out, 'have you found her yet?' and all hell broke loose."

_Her yelling caught the boys by surprise. The blond kid jumped a mile high. He didn't like the surprise. He yanked this wonky magic wand out of his-_

"Magic wand?" Wilcox chuckled.

"A stick," McDonald sniffed with annoyance. "Just a stick with a handle. The kind fairy tale witches and fairies use to channel their powers and use magic with."

_The blond guy pulled a stick out of a pocket in his cloak, pointed it at the girl on the roof, shouted something I didn't quite make out, and she got hurt. Fine, I'll clarify! He cursed her. He said some sort of spell and it hurt her. I couldn't see exactly how he'd done it, but he was torturing her from the ground while she was on the roof. She started twitching and screaming, and damn if I wasn't scared out of my mind._

"How…?" Wilcox began to ask.

"I don't know," McDonald repeated. Her grey eyebrows were drawn with stress; it was clear that she, too, thought this part of the tale was sheer madness. "I don't know. All I can think of is magic wands and curses. She was hollering and thrashing like she was on fire, but I couldn't see anything physically hurting her." Wilcox studied her face with an unreadable expression on his.

"You do realise this is completely insane?" Wilcox asked flatly.

"Yes. But it gets better."

_The smaller guy with the lightning scar yanked the wand out of his buddy's hand and started talking to him, real quiet-like, so I couldn't hear what he said. The girl on the roof stopped twitching and yelling. She just sort of collapsed and nearly fell off the edge, then got up a moment later. She might have been foaming at the mouth, she looked that pissed._

_Now, this is the part that made me dead certain they weren't human. The girl took two running steps, jumped, and sailed all the way to the top of my car. That was the damage to the roof. She jumped on it from all the way on top of the church and she didn't hurt her legs a bit when she landed. Now, I had ducked as soon as I figured out where she was going to land, but the bent-in roof smacked me in the back of the head anyway._

"You sustained a head injury?" Wilcox interrupted. "Can I see?" McDonald obediently turned her shoulders and neck, allowing Wilcox a view of the back of her head. A small trickle of dried blood remained in her grey-blond head, accompanied by a sizeable bump several inches below her bun. "That looks painful."

"It is," the woman sighed morosely. "Anyway, the girl landed on my car…"

_I got a mighty bump on my head, and when I looked up, the girl was already on top of the blond boy. She may have looked scrawny, but she was like a ferocious little kitten; all cute and fluffy until you reach the claws and teeth. She knocked that blond guy over with no sweat, and next thing I knew she was trying to rip out his Adam's apple._

"So, the child assaulted the boys," Wilcox noted, marking something else on his paper and closing the folder again. "No, the blond. Did the brunette do anything to stop her? What were _you_ doing?"

"I was saying obscene things under my breath and rubbing the bump on my head," McDonald sighed reasonably. "I didn't even try to get out and help. If you'd seen this girl, you would have known why. I've watched lots of fighting tournaments in reality and on TV, and I've never seen anybody move that fast. I knew I'd get killed if I tried to help, and I was a bit surprised that the blond boy hadn't already died. You should have heard him scream! He couldn't keep up at all."

"The brunette-"

"He pulled out his own wand," Mary Sue McDonald began again. Her fists knotted over her purple nurse pants. "He pointed it right at the little orange girl and said, '_Petricrusectum Incendimortalus_.'" The Detective held up a hand to stop her, and handed her a steaming mug of decaf coffee.

"Do you like it black?" McDonald nodded, took a deep gulp, and replaced into her seat. "So, this boy with the scar, he cast a spell on her as well?" The woman nodded. She took a deep breath before going on.

_This spell was different. That girl started to scream like banshee before she caught on fire, and- get this- blood started spurting all over the place, like a water balloon being poked with a needle. The blood caught on fire too… It was everywhere. Oh, did I mention the fire was **green? **If I wasn't scared before, I was scared then, and I was dead certain they were all demons. I didn't want to get mixed up in it any more._

_Did you know, normally, people go nuts with pain when they're on fire? They at least flap their arms or run and thrash around, but that girl locked up like a soldier in rank and fell flat on the ground, toasting away. I was certain she'd been killed, and just as certain that the fire would make my car explode if it got any closer. I tried to start the engine going, but the car was too busted and it wouldn't start up._

_Next thing I know, the car was knocked on it's side. It did a flip in the air before it landed._

"How did that-?"

"I had no idea at first," McDonald stated, taking another large gulp of the coffee. "It turns out that the blond guy noticed the fire getting close to my car, and he knocked me out of the way." Wilcox poured a cup of coffee for himself, glaring at the dull grey table, a scowl set firmly in his face.

"That's not possible," he stated. "No teenager can _throw_ a car."

"No _human_ teenager," McDonald corrected him.

"Wait…" Wilcox suddenly snapped up to glare at the woman. "You told me the blond had been assaulted, that he'd gotten chunks of flesh torn out his neck."

"And so he had," the nurse replied. She too was frowning. "And it probably should have killed him, but it didn't. By the time I got another look at him, there wasn't a scratch on him."

_The car landed facing them, so I could still see and hear their every word. I was left sitting on top of the left door with a cut on my leg- don't ask how I got the cut, things happened mighty fast when the car flipped. The blond was standing a few feet off, looking proud of himself and taking off his robe. He hung it on my tire and winked at me… that's when I saw the tattoo on his forearm. That little girl was still burning there. The boy with the scar was just standing there staring at the girl as she burned, but the blond pointed his wand at her and cast some sort of spell to put her out._

"Put her out?" Wilcox repeated, his eyes widening. "Do you mean they killed her?" McDonald stared at him blankly for a moment before laughing and shaking her head.

"No, no. I should have said he _extinguished_ her." She sipped again at her coffee, only to find the cup empty. Without a word, Wilcox took it from her hand and went to refill it with the last of the coffee that remained in the pot. The nurse stared at the tape recorder in silence. "Half the tape is gone and I haven't even gotten to the good part," she sighed. "I'm not sure I-"

"Here," Wilcox interrupted, sliding the full cup back over to her. She took a swift gulp and set it down roughly.

"I'm not sure I can go on with this." Her gaze was intently fixed on her hands.

Wilcox looked up at her curiously. "Why is that?"

"After that point they were revealing secrets left and right," the blond whispered. "The sort of thing that only I would tell people about. They'll find out I went blabby…"

"Your protection can be arranged," Wilcox encouraged her. "Now, if you would please-"

"You don't understand anything, do you, you pompous ape?" McDonald snarled. "They don't need telephone books to find me, they don't even have to know my name. I'm a marked woman." The detective raised an eyebrow as he sat back down.

"Didn't you hear me?" Wilcox demanded. "Your protection can be… Madame, _what are you doing!"_ Flustered, the man covered his eyes, for the purple-clad nurse had began to unbutton and remove her shirt.

"Look," McDonald commanded. "I am literally a marked woman." Wilcox cautiously uncovered an eye, saw that she had only exposed a shoulder, and relaxed. His calm was short-lived.

On her shoulder was a bite wound that hadn't healed and didn't bleed. Two particularly deep punctures interrupted the clear marks of a human bite. It wasn't even scabbed over. Wilcox flinched, clearly reeling his mind for alternatives to what he clearly saw before him. He slowly reached towards the wound, looking to the woman for permission. "It's real. You can touch it, it's not going to smear off like stage makeup."

Wilcox only tapped it once before pulling his hand away with hardly disguised disgust. McDonald smirked as she pulled her shirt back up and buttoned it. "You'll have to talk to Karen so the bite can be identified and disinfected," detective Wilcox mumbled, gulping back his small wave of nausea. "Who did this?"

"The little Negro girl," McDonald nodded. "Do you see why I didn't want to tell you now?"

"Ma'am," Wilcox muttered. "I know you've been shaken, but a bite in the shoulder isn't a tracking device. We can arrange for your protection if you feel you truly need it. Say what you came here to say." Mary Sue gave him a hard look, dropped her gaze, and nodded.

_So, the blond did some sort of spell that extinguished the girl. I figured she'd need serious medical care about an attack like that, but my sense of self-preservation didn't let me step in at that point. It's a good thing. Just like the blond boy had healed so fast from her assault, the little girl sat up two seconds later looking just as healthy as when I first saw her, unless you count her burned and bloody clothes._

_She wasn't too happy about the ordeal. The moment she popped up, she started screaming and cussing at the boys, especially at the brunette. They didn't seem to care all that much about what she said… They were actually whispering to each other and giving me funny looks, but that girl just kept carrying on like a hungry baby. She had really poor grammar; poor babe was talking in third person and called everyone else by their pronoun names; you know: he, it, they._

"Wait," Wilcox interrupted. "Third person meaning, she referred to herself by her name instead of saying 'I'?"

"Why, yes," McDonald sneered. "Unless my language teachers have been lying to me all these years, that's what third person is. I'm glad you paid attention in class."

Wilcox glared, but he refused to take the bait. "What did she call herself?"

"Adyn, sometimes Adonis," the woman mused.

Wilcox whispered 'Uh-don-iss… Ay-din…' to himself as he jotted the word on his paper. "Go on."

_Right. She just kept cussing and carrying on. I didn't really catch everything she said, but a lot of it was about somebody called 'mum-goose'. She also seemed to think that the Brunette was living one big hairy lie. She did mention wizards a few times, and vampires, but I don't really see why she mentioned them. She called the brunette **Harry** right before he cut her off._

The detective bit his pen for a moment before writing down the name and nodding for Mary Sue to continue.

_Basically, he hit her over the head, and he told her that he'd changed his name to **Vorgulmortis**. He also said that the blond next him should be called Dragon from then on. Now, that brunette- will you recall who he is if I call him Vorgul? Right, he pulled the girl onto her feet and told her that he'd kill her if she didn't shut up._

"Was his tone threatening, or just his language?" Wilcox asked distractedly, running a beefy hand through his balding hair.

"Just the language," McDonald sighed. "I mean, he was smiling when he told her to shut up or face his mighty Vorgul-ish wrath."

_The kid went ape. She told him that he was going to destroy the hopes of every wizard in the world, and that he was going to ruin everything he'd always represented. Now, I didn't catch everything, but she said that this scarred boy was a hero for killing some big bad wizard called the Dark Lord, that the Minister had Vorgul's picture on his desk and her best friend had a poster of him on her wall- and here he was, turning into the evil thing they worshipped him for having destroyed. I think the scarred Brunette taking the name Vorgulmortis was an intentional kick in the balls for all the wizards out there; don't ask why, I could just tell by the way they said the name, they said it like a dirty word._

_At first I thought it was completely insane, that the girl was a subhuman nutcase hobo, but no… They started talking back to her. She told Vorgul that he was living a destructive lie, and he.. It was like watching someone confess to a crime on a dramatic mystery show. Vorgul admitted to living a lie, but… What were his words? He said his "lie" was that he wanted to "eclipse the greatness of Lord Vandermond." Wait… No, it was Voldemort. Maybe that's why Vorgulmortis was such a foul name, it sounded like Voldemort._

Wilcox's eyes had hardened. It took the witness several seconds to look up and notice his expression through her bifocals. She frowned. "Something wrong? Do you know this hard-ass?" The Detective almost jumped in his seat.

"No," Wilcox said sharply. "No, I don't personally know any Lords. I was just thinking. That name sounds familiar." Mrs. McDonald shook her head, realised her bun was falling out, and let her graying blond hair down with a sigh.

"So, Detective, do you always look constipated when you think? I could use that as a guide to see whether or not you're listening to a word I say." Conner Wilcox growled low in his throat and straightened his suit, frustrated at the woman's impudence.

"What happened after the exchange of words?"

"Oh, but that wasn't the end of it."

_This Vorgulmortis guy, he told that skinny little girl that the only thing stopping him and Dragon from becoming dark wizards was the fact that they were vampires… He started ranting then, saying that the girl's mum had to die for them to become wizards again._

"Adonis's mother?" Conner repeated, scratching his stubble-ridden chin with his left hand whilst writing something down with his right. "So, given the conversation, you were… led to believe… that the girl's mother turned the boys into vampires?" McDonald frowned with her thin lips and nodded.

"They never said that directly," the snaky woman restated. "But boy was it ever suggested; and unless every movie and book I ever read was chock-full of crap, killing a vampire's master will make them turn human again." The detective narrowed his small, dark eyes at her, almost as if sizing her up. "Don't you give me that dirty look, Detective. I know what I'm talking about."

_Now, I was just stuck there in my overturned car watching. The blond guy- that Dragon- the more the brunette talked, the more nervous this blond guy seemed to get, and he kept watching me like I was going to eat him. I'm pretty sure he was worried about how much I was learning from their talk. He didn't do anything, though there were a few times I thought he might snap a spell on me._

_The boy with the scar just kept on raving. I gathered that he was hunting the little girl's mum, and that he needed help to find her because his "old methods weren't working anymore". She just stared at him like she wanted to rip his guts out while he ranted about her blood-sucking whore of a mother._

_Dragon eventually smacked scar-boy in the back of the head and told him to shut his psycho trap. He pointed me out and told both Vorgul and the girl that I had been there the whole time and seen too much._

_I knew I was in trouble then, so I grabbed my purse and tried to open the passenger door to get out- it was above my head, you know? I managed to open the door, but I haven't been in the best of shape lately, and I couldn't pull myself out._

Detective Wilcox listened with sharp interest. McDonald nervously took a small jar of lip balm from her pocket, and as she began to apply it, a loud click echoed through the room. Both jumped slightly in their seats. "What was that?" McDonald asked wildly, grasping the chest of her flowery purple shirt.

"Just the recorder, ma'am," the Detective said apologetically. He slowly pulled the recorder to his person, looking over the buttons for a short time before punching down the black eject button. McDonald relaxed as he calmly replaced the tape and set the device back on the center of the table. For a brief moment, his fingers fumbled over the buttons. McDonald's eyes narrowed as he pressed 'record' and 'fast forward' at the same time, and quickly corrected himself by pressing 'play' and 'record.'

"Any day now? I want to get this over with," McDonald snapped.

"It's ready," the Detective grudgingly informed his witness.

_Alright… I was trying to pull myself out, but I just couldn't do it. Then that little black girl appeared right over the door. I was trapped, and damn if I didn't think I was going to die. She pulled me up out of the car by my collar and dragged me down on the ground next to the smashed phone booth. Those boys were just staring and not doing a thing, like they'd planned it or something._

_That girl, she just bit me and dropped me like-_

"Through your clothes?" Conner Wilcox asked skeptically, tapping his pen on the table.

"Yes," McDonald replied stiffly. "And before you bother mentioning it, the blond boy used a spell to mend my shirt."

_It only stung for a second. I was a bit confused when she dropped me. She was just smirking her pretty little head off. The blond boy, that Dragon- he asked what she did that for, and then he pointed his wand at me and said this funny word that I can't remember… it fixed my skirt. That Adyn girl, she just started laughing and she said I was marked. She said they wouldn't have to worry about me telling because I'd die if I did. So help me, I believed her, but here I am telling all these secrets and I haven't kicked the bucket yet!_

_With that, they totally ignored me. That freaky boy with the scar seemed to realize he was only making the girl mad instead of impressing her, so he softened his tone and actually asked her for help. That seemed pretty ridiculous to me, since his goal was to kill her mum… But she agreed to help find her. She said she had her own reasons, that she still needed her mum- oh, now I get it, her "momgoose" was her mum! Sorry, thinking aloud._

"She agreed to help these boys murder her mother?" Conner demanded, scratching frantically at his paper with his pen. Mary Sue narrowed her owlish eyes, nodded, and opened her mouth- but the Detective cut her off. "If you're about to say something sassy, you can keep those jaws of yours clamped firmly shut," he warned, twirling his pen through his fingers in a slightly threatening manner. Mrs. McDonald let out a bark of laughter.

"I was going to continue recounting the events, you presumptuous old-"

"Go on," the man interrupted, patting down his tie with a smirk. McDonald bit her tongue and continued on with her tale.

_The final result was a truce. They agreed to help each other find this vampire mother, but then they got all fighting again, because that scarred boy still wanted to kill the woman. They ended up agreeing that when they found her they'd have a four-way duel, and the winning side would get their way. I figure that's a horrid way to go about things, but I didn't want them to notice me again._

_So, when they finished their plotting, they shook hands and that crazy girl ran off without telling the boys how to meet her again. Now then, those boys, they whispered with one another for a minute, all hush-hush-like… Then they told me that they would find me and kill me if I breathed a word about what happened._

_Then there was a funny popping noise, and they vanished, just like that. I was left there for another fifteen minutes or so before I got the nerve to get on the phone and call in for help._

_That's all there is to it._

With that, Mrs. McDonald folded her hands in her lap. Conner seemed dazed at the abrupt end of her story, but he soon began to scribble away at his paper again, brows knotted in thought. True to Mary Sue McDonald's earlier accusations, he really did look constipated when in deep thought. "That's it, then? Can I leave?"

"Not just yet," Conner said quickly, jotting down a couple more letters and setting down his pen. "I'd like you to clarify what happened. Less detail, more simple facts."

The witness bristled with indignation. Out of spite, the nurse began to retell her tale with annoying brevity and sped speech. "I got sleepy and crashed into a telephone poll, then that orange-haired Negro girl popped up out of nowhere, then those two boys popped up out of nowhere, then they exchanged curses and toppled my car, then they talked about their world domination schemes, then they dragged me out of the wreck and bit me, then they decided to help each other find a woman that the boys intended to murder, then they left." She took a deep breath, and began to speak at normal speed once more. "Yes, that's all I have to report; a car accident and a few kids planning murder."

"Vampiric magic-using kids," Conner added under his breath. McDonald scowled and picked up her purse to leave, but the Detective grasped her by wrist.

"Wait. There's one more question I have to ask." The nurse wrinkled her nose at him, but didn't move. "Do you think what you saw was real?" Her face fell blank. "Do you truly believe in the existence of wizards and vampires?"

The old nurse pulled her wrist away from the Detective, surveying him with her owlish eyes. "Before I moved to London," she whispered. "I served as a nurse in a camp for the Americans in the Vietnam War." Wilcox patiently waited for her to get to the point. "I was young then, and I learned a lot from being there. One of the lessons I took with me was this, 'Any man who doesn't believe his eyes is a man that goes home in a bag.' I witnessed those boys casting spells with my own eyes and ears; I have the bite to prove that girl was a vampire and the wrecked car to prove the whole incident happened."

"So…"

"So, yes, I believe in wizards and vampires now. And I believe that the hero Harry has turned against the other wizards, and he's planning murder." Mary Sue McDonald proudly puffed up her chest. "And no amount of people telling me I dreamed it up is going to stop me from believing!"

Conner Wilcox seemed to sink into his chair. "Really…" he whispered. He quickly packed up his paper and pen, then stood and brushed a bit of lint off his suit. He had the strangest expression on his face, a mix of loathing and disappointment. "Oh, dear, Mary… But that really wasn't the correct answer." He pulled a black wand from his slightly open suitcase. _"Avada Kedavra."

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_

Whoo, did the end catch anybody by surprise? Let me know if you're confused. Review please! BETA PLEASE! 


	2. Life Goes On

_**A Different Kind of Hero- By Ceilidh Clemens, Characters © JKR**_

**_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_** This chapter wasn't originally going to be this long, but I got caught up summarizing the events of Different Kind of Pureblood (and something you missed between the prologue and this chapter).

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**Chapter 2- Life Goes On**

All that gives humans power over animals is the lack of instincts.

All that gives vampires power over humans is the lack of a heartbeat.

_Humans can stop themselves from having sex. They can stop eating and drinking if they so please; it may kill them in the end, but "instincts" will never force a man to get a glass of water and stick a plate in the microwave. It is this control over their actions; this ability to NOT fly South during the winter and NOT swim upstream, this power to ignore what their bodies tell them, that has allowed humanity to dominate the planet._

_One can argue that the "hunting instincts" passed from sire to childe are unstoppable._

_But I'm just another vampire that can control his thirst for blood._

"Unless it's mine," Harry scolded Draco, having heard these thoughts with crystal clarity from the other side of the room. It was a part of their bond, which had only strengthened when Draco finally killed him. "I've got so many hickeys that can be traced back to you, I almost look like I've got daemon-chicken pox. You're a bloody sadist. You know that, right?" Draco smirked and strode to the side of the pearly tub from the doorway. The blond wasn't the least bit perturbed by Harry's glare. The Gryffindor give his wand one last, futile flick at the recent bite just above his heart. It wouldn't heal; none of Draco's bites ever healed completely.

"It it my fault that you're still tasty?" Draco chuckled, perching himself beside the edge of the tub, resisting the powerful urge to grab his beau from behind and give him yet another patented Malfoy hickey. "Besides, you enjoy it. You're a blood masochist. You know that, right?" Harry gave him a baleful look, involuntary pouting out his lips as his green eyes flickered. Draco was enchanted. "You're too cute sometimes. Girly, even."

The once-bespectacled Boy-Who-Lived set his wand beside the great bath, green eyes becoming distant as he thought.

Draco loved to watch Harry's bottle-green eyes. They had always been that color, but before Draco became a vampire, he never bothered to notice. The first time he saw Harry's eyes through the eyes of a vampire, he decided those were the most beautiful eyes on Earth. Draco still didn't care that Harry hadn't recognized him at first. Hell, Harry hadn't even realized he was being bitten by a vampire!

Giving in to a minute urge, Draco ran his white fingers through his mate's dripping black hair, smiling as he recalled what a shock the truth had been for him. They had kissed only once before Harry knew the truth, but Draco knew he loved Harry the moment the Gryffindor accepted him for all that he truly was. Harry didn't seem to notice Draco's touch. His eyes fell shut, his expression fell blank, and he relaxed against the side of the ivory bathtub; Draco was miffed at the very idea that he could be ignored. "Harry?" Draco whispered. He received no answer.

A small ripple in the tub water made the smaller vampire's hair flow back, thereby giving Draco easy access to Harry's shoulders, which Draco had found to be one of the wizard's sensitive areas. Seizing the opportunity by the horns, Draco snaked his arms around his brunette boyfriend, pulled him close, and dragged his cold tongue across Harry's milky skin.

"S-s-stop that!" Harry squeaked, shaking himself free from the blonde's grip. Draco laughed to see Harry trembling; if Harry were still alive, his face would have been bright red. "Do you even know why people take baths?"

"To get clean?" Draco drawled, cocking an eyebrow.

"Exactly! I'm in here to get clean, not _dirty!_ And I'm trying to relax, not excite myself!" Draco smirked and stood, amused by Harry's flustered behavior and the fact that his guest felt the need to hide amongst the bubbles.

"I think I can do all the exciting for you," Draco purred. He knew perfectly well that Harry was having an awkward time as far as sexuality was concerned; the boy in the bath was still shy of the very idea of sex with anyone, let lone a male. Despite Draco's best efforts, Harry had never consented to go past kissing, cuddling and the occasional intimate bite.

The abashed young man bit his lip, drawing a tiny drop of blood with his sharp teeth as he cautiously kept out of Draco's reach. "Is there any particular reason you're even in here?" Harry whispered, trying to change the subject.

"Now that you mention it, yes," Draco sighed, resting his chin on the glittery edge of the tub basin. It wasn't a pleasant subject, but he had to bring it up… "Do you regret it?"

Harry's eyes darkened. He knew perfectly well what Draco meant.

"Regret what?" he asked anyway.

"The things we did last night." No longer hot and bothered but simply distressed, Harry glared. Draco pressed on. "Meeting Adyn…? Agreeing to help the little leech? Not Obliviating that old nurse? Killing that homeless boy for dessert on our way home? Do you regret these things? You've been distant since then." Harry's lip twitched into a small frown.

"I wish I knew how to Obliviate," he told Draco quietly. "It would have been a great favor to that woman if she'd only forgotten what she'd seen. But, hey, we couldn't have done the memory charm, right? We couldn't have helped that."

"And agreeing to help Adyn find Niles…?" Harry made a strange noise; it was both a growl at the back of his throat and a Parseltongue obscenity from the tip of his tongue. It was just one of the small things that made Draco slightly unnerved about the Gryffindor; ever since he learned that Harry's knowledge of Parseltongue was unnatural even by Parselmouth terms, he got a fleeting image of Harry as Lord Voldemort whenever a hiss left those lips.

That moment was gone as soon as it began. "Well, we all want to find Niles, don't we?" Harry snapped. "Sure, maybe we're 'helping the enemy,' but I don't see the point in working alone. We might need her help." He took a deep breath to relax. Not that he needed the oxygen; it was merely a habitual action to calm himself. "In fact, I'm _certain_ that we'll need her help before the end."

Draco wanted to ask what 'end' Harry was talking about, but he thought better of it.

"But what about the boy?"

Harry sank several inches in the water. "He was sick, starved, and homeless. He would have died anyway." There was an edge in his voice that challenged Draco to disagree. The blond couldn't. Certainly, the boy they killed wouldn't have lasted another two days, but it was the first time either of them had killed someone- and it had been for _food_. That nagging part of them that was still human had already began to come up with excuses for their actions, a mere seven hours later.

"I just wish that the Ministry would send a bit more sustenance," Draco sighed, sliding out of his silky black pajama top. Harry shivered, his eyes widening in appreciation for a moment before he politely looked away. "They barely send enough to keep one vampire healthy, and you're stuck with hardly anything. It's their own damn problem if we have to start killing to survive."

"But they don't know I'm here," Harry protested. Draco was slightly annoyed by his companion's desire to defending the Wizarding populace. "They don't think there's a second vamp here."

"So go out of hiding!" Draco spat. "I'm not going to live off half a blood ration every other day because you don't want to pay for your crimes against humanity!" Harry looked decidedly uncomfortable. It took Draco a moment to realize that the Parselmouth was nervously holding his right forearm, which bore the same Dark Mark the Death Eaters wore; they both knew these marks had nothing to do with Voldemort, but the Ministry would never understand. The fact that their marks were on the right arms instead of the left would mean nothing to a judge, even if Voldemort would sooner go shopping in tutu than brand a wizard's right arm. These marks were from love.

"But Draco, my arm…" Harry whispered, clammy wet fingers tightening into claws against his own pale flesh. Draco winced as Harry's sharp nail pierced this skin. Lost in his agitation, Harry didn't seem to notice. "I can't just walk into the Ministry Office to announce I've been casting Unforgivables, inventing hybrid curses, and killing children! And then showing them the Dark Mark? They'd kill me on spot!"

"They would," Draco conceded, glowering pointlessly at the floor. After all, he'd been chased from the Ministry by hex-flinging Aurors last time he'd simply stopped in for directions. _Paranoid bastards._

"So, what exactly am I supposed to do?" Harry demanded. "I know you don't like starving- hell, I can't say I enjoy it either- but if you can just hang on until we've slain Niles and turned human again, the Dark Marks should vanish. We can go and turn ourselves in then."

"Unless, of course, you decide by that time you really would like to be become another Dark Lord…" Draco laughed as Harry attempted to splash his pretty clothes with bathwater. He missed by several feet; the pale ex-pureblood was far faster than the flying water. Draco couldn't help it but laugh at the small victory. "Have mercy, Master!" Draco pretended to plead.

Harry's features suddenly became very wicked indeed. "If it's a Master you want so badly," Harry hissed mischievously, "Than come to my side, _servant_." He lurched from the tub to grasp Draco's thin wrist. Realizing he was about to be dragged into the tub with his pajama bottoms still on, Draco began to struggle, but the fledgling Harry was stronger and heavier than him.

"No!" the blond yelped as he was dragged bodily into the tub. Harry laughed as Draco sprang from the water, coughing and sputtering. His once-handsome silk pajamas clung to him like cling-wrap. "My beautiful clothes!" he wailed. Harry fell against the side of the tub, trying in vain to suppress his laughter. Draco angrily began to remove the drenched pants. "Damn it, Harry! These things are _dry clean only!_"

Harry had clearly acquired a bad sense of humor in the short time he'd been so intimately acquainted with Draco, for his laughter only became more malicious. "Does this mean your pants are shrinking?" he cackled.

"Yes!" Draco squeaked, tugging frantically at his buttons. "They are! And quickly!" Indeed, Harry could see the waistband contracting on the blond, who conceded defeat and ripped the things clean off before they could constrict him any further.

No longer laughing, Harry had but a moment to gape at Draco's nude form before the blond hopped into a particularly bubbly part of the massive ivory tub. "Now I'm going to have to buy a new pair," Draco pouted.

"Sorry," Harry muttered, though his dim eyes made it clear that he wasn't.

"Wanker," Draco growled. "Those pajamas cost two hundred galleons."

"What a rip-off!" Harry exclaimed. "Why spend so much money on clothes that look better on the floor?" Draco allowed himself to smirk.

"Ah, but it's usually worth the gold when somebody else removes them for you," the blond drawled. He rather enjoyed the way Harry's sweat had a slightly red hue; that and the fact that he was naked in a hot tub gave Draco a very pleasing assortment of perverse mental images. "What are you thinking about?" Draco asked casually.

"Well," Harry reflected, turning away from his blond beau. Draco tried to keep his gaze off the curve of Harry's neck. "First and foremost, I'm thinking about breakfast." Draco's smirk wavered slightly. Harry was clearly not in the mood. _I'll just have to mend that… _"Than again," the Gryffindor mused, sweeping Draco's soggy form with his brilliant green eyes. "Why go down there for a cold bottle when I can stay here and have a hot vampire?"

That certainly brought a smile to Draco's lips… before Harry set about crushing them with his own.

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Sorry about the lame chapter ending. Things will get more interesting when they get out of that tub! 


	3. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

**_A Different Kind of Hero- By Ceilidh Clemens, Characters © JKR_**

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Chapter 3- Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia**

Had the bathtub not been magical, Draco and Harry would have been prunes by the time they pulled the plug. Harry had complained loudly that he'd forever reek of Draco's French soaps; Draco only smirked, not considering this a loss in any way. "Besides, if you smell like a Malfoy, who'd be dumb enough to pick a fight with you?"

"Too many people to list," Harry grumbled, as he pulled on yet another outfit borrowed from the Slytherin's wardrobe. The silvery vampire took a break from drying his hair to watch his boyfriend dress. The Gryffindor clearly didn't have eyes on the back of his head; if he did, he might have noticed Draco salivating when he pulled tight black pants over his arse. "Do we have enough blood left for breakfast?"

"No," Draco resentfully sighed. "And we don't get any more for three days, so we'll just have to tighten our belts and deal with it." He had to tear his eyes away from Harry's belt, which bore a pewter snake that moved realistically and spoke gibberish in Parseltongue.

Deciding that he'd pounce on Harry if he didn't leave, the master of the house retired to the bedroom, debating what he should wear on this particular Thursday. His massive wardrobe stretched across most of the room, and was divided into sections by garment, and divided once again by whether or not they looked "proper" or "hot". Today was obviously not a day for formal wear. _Black, black, and black? Silver, black and green?_ Taking a second look at the storm outside, the pale pureblood decided that a pair of thick black pants and a warm gray sweater would be best.

"Seeya downstairs," Harry chirped as he left. Draco didn't dare to glance at his edible boyfriend.

Several minutes later, the blond descended from his bedroom to the kitchen, with all the relish he could muster. He flung the doors open, strode in swaying his hips and showing off his clothes, tossed his hair… and was completely ignored.

"Morning, Draco," Granger mumbled through her toast. Her fluffy brown hair was looking decidedly untidy; it was twice as big as usual and draped over the shoulder of Ron Weasley (who also suffered from bad hair). They were both clearly fixated on whatever was on the table. It must have been a crossword puzzle, because Granger continued to say, "You spelled 'Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia' wrong!" and Ronald hastily corrected himself with his wand.

"Tea and toast?" Harry offered from the far end of the kitchen, holding a kettle in his soft hands.

"Skip the toast," Draco replied, vaguely annoyed by their lack of complete adoration for his appearance. "It doesn't do me any good these days, and I never did like jelly." Harry only chuckled and poured some tea. Draco was about to take the cup from Harry's hand, but then he recalled… "I'll be right back."

Draco was gone almost as fast as if he'd Apparated; he knew Harry would see this as rude, but he didn't care. He was going to make it for it.

Up the stairs, down the hall, turn right, down the next hall, aha, the bedroom. Not a full three seconds after fleeing the kitchen, Draco heaved open a dresser drawer, smiling at the contents before gathering them in his arms and speeding back towards his boyfriend.

"What was that about?" Weasley demanded, jotting down another word on his crossword, which Granger swiftly corrected.

"This," Draco said imperiously, kneeling before a stunned Harry and presenting him with a small box.

"Is… that can't be, you don't seriously mean to…?" Harry sputtered, utterly shocked. Had he been mortal, his cheeks would have been red by now. Draco would have laughed at the priceless look on Harry's face, but that would ruin the moment.

"Open it before you make assumptions," Granger warned Harry. She'd clearly seen the not-quite-serious look on Draco face. The apprehensive Gryffindor cautiously took the box from Draco's hand, fumbled with the lid, and opened it.

And he laughed.

"Happy late birthday," Draco cackled, getting off the floor. Inside the box were a few late birthday presents for his mate, not a wedding ring as the box had suggested.

Harry began to pull out small bags of gifts from the tiny box. First came the huge pack of Bloodpops. This was followed by a pair of silky green boxers (Ron looked rather uncomfortable), a gift certificate from a local sushi restaurant, and a new robe. "Merlin's ASS, Draco!" Harry choked, pulling out a small bottle of raspberry scented massage oil/lubricant.

"Have you no shame?" Granger guffawed, nearly as amused as she was scandalized.

"None at all," Draco assured her, egotistic smirk planted firmly in place. "There's one more gift…" Harry reached in the bag once more, just as a loud screech came from the window. It was a large Scops owl, with a rather important-looking bit of parchment wrapped around it's leg.

"I'll get that," Ron offered, springing up from his seat and dashing to the window. He was clearly desperate to get away from Granger's perfectionism and Harry's new boxers. Draco smirked, watching the youngest remaining Weasley as his new magical eyes surveyed the parchment. "It's for you, of course," the freckled redhead informed Draco, before having even opened the letter.

Though he'd been loath to do it, Draco was the one who purchased the ridiculously expensive magical eyes for Ron; after all, he was the one responsible for Ron's blindness. The very sight of those big buggy eyes always made Draco laugh; not only did they look ridiculous, but they were also a strong reminder of a rabid ferret attack. Harry hid his smile behind his tea, setting his last present aside for the moment.

"It's from SpellSecure," Draco mused out loud, unfurling the imperious paper. The owl promptly fled the scene.

"SpellSecure?" Harry repeated, an eyebrow raised.

"They do security for the Manor," Draco informed his chosen mate. "They keep the Muggles away and alert authorities about break-ins… All that important stuff." His gray eyes skimmed over the page curiously. "Oh, Merlin, no…"

"What is it?" Granger asked quickly, stiffening her back, alerted by Draco's tone.

The young Malfoy curled the page back up and tossed it angrily onto the table. Stupid security companies. Stupid mother… "Well," Draco began, "You know how my mother went missing for months and my father was in Azkaban?" He was answered by nods. "It turns out that nobody was here to pay any of the bills. Our security's been cut off, and even if I pay now, they won't get it running again until next month."

Ron gaped.

"How tragic," Granger sighed, with a great grin spreading across her face.

"This isn't funny!" Draco snapped. "Now we're going to get door-to-door salesman trying to butt in and make me buy their dirty candy bars and cleaning products! And the religious nuts…" Thoroughly annoyed at the very thought of these disruptions, Draco kicked a chair and plopped unceremoniously into it. Granger only chuckled and went back to the crossword. Harry wasn't looking too concerned either. In fact, Draco realized, he looked quite happy with this news. "What's so bloody wonderful about this, Potter?"

"Nothing," Harry replied with a serene smile. With that, he dived into his gifts one last time, pulling out another small box.

Draco looked back up as Harry opened the last present. _I hope he likes the color… _Harry's bright green eyes widened as he removed the object from it's box.

"Oh, wow," Hermione whispered. Ron's mouth was dangling open; the object in Harry's hands must have been worth more than the Burrow before it was destroyed.

It was a snake necklace. It's body was made of emerald and silver, its eyes made of ruby, its chain platinum. As Harry lifted it in the light, the little thing lifted its head and hissed softly. Draco watched in happy fascination as Harry hissed back, a smile playing at his lips. The conversation lasted almost half a minute before Harry finally clasped the necklace around his throat, allowing his gift to make itself comfortable on his clavicle.

"What did she say?" Draco asked after a moment.

"That you're a right bastard for leaving her in that tiny box for a week," Harry answered, a huge grin plastered on his mug. "Dragon, she's… she's beautiful. How much did she cost?"

"I probably could have bought all the Weasleys as slaves with all those galleons," Draco mused, deciding to ignore Ron and Granger's dirty glares. "She was made by Slytherin's great grandson. Do you like her?"

"So far she seems a bit stuck up, but after you, I'm ready for anything." Despite Weasley and Granger groaning in disapproval, Harry grasped Draco by the hips and pulled him in for a kiss. The blond enthusiastically tangled his hands in Harry's smooth black hair, kissing Harry back, relishing in the close contact. Granger coughed softly. This only inspired Draco to slide a hand down Harry's spine and cup Harry's buttocks. The pale vampire absolutely adored the soft gasp from Harry's soft lips. _To Hell with Granger and Weasley._

Draco would have pulled Harry to the floor and snogged his boyfriend senseless, but a sudden knocking at the door interrupted them. Cursing, Draco untangled himself and fixed his (now disheveled) collar. Harry also appeared mad about this disturbance.

"Religious nuts, or salesmen?" he barked at Weasley, who turned his Moody-like eyes to the door and replied, "Nuts, complete with Bibles, raincoats, and pamphlets."

"Speak of the devil and he dances straight to your doorstep?" Harry chuckled. He suddenly sobered. "None of use are, uh, _dressed properly_ to speak to Muggles." He gestured to their entirely magical wardrobe. Draco swore again.

"Then how- heeeeeeey," Draco gasped, suddenly looking very demonic indeed. "Why even pretend to be Muggle?" Hermione gawked at him, dumbfounded. "I want to see the looks on the faces when they see a pair of gay magic-using vampires!"

"Do you have a psychotic wish to join your father in Azkaban?" Hermione asked quietly.

There was another knock on the door.

"Harry?" Draco asked, turning his misty gray eyes to his partner. Harry was staring at him as if he'd gone mad, shaking his head and clearly itching to step away. "Ah, fine. I'll handle this alone." In an impressive whirl of cloak, Draco was at the door. He smirked as her twisted the doorknob and pulled the thing open.

At the fine marble doorstep stood two women, both clearly Muggle and clearly Christian. The younger one, a vaguely pretty brunette in a heavy coat, bore a huge pile of pamphlets; the older one was lugging a huge box which appeared to be full of bibles. The vampire was amused to see crosses around their necks; they would affect him just as negatively as a good night's sleep.

They were both gawking at his clothes.

"What can I do for you?" Draco asked cheerfully. The older woman blinked, recovered her wits, and smiled calmly at him.

"We just wanted to know if you've accepted the hand of Christ," she stated. Though the words never left her lips, Draco knew was itching to say, "you've clearly done no such thing."

Draco reflected upon his answer for a minute. "What would I stand to gain?" The younger woman shifted her feet, looking slightly upset. _Of course, religion shouldn't be about personal benefit._ "I mean, really. I'm fairly certain that I have everything I want. I'm dirty rich and I've already got somebody to love me." A soft cough came from the kitchen. Draco smirked, knowing Harry had heard every word.

"Will that matter when you're dead?" the younger woman asked softly.

"Oh, certainly. I intend to take my lover and my money with me into the afterlife. I like explosives, you see." The women didn't hear Harry laughing in the kitchen. It was the older one who seemed most bothered by these words.

"But you'll go to hell," she informed Draco, scowl set firmly in place. "Especially if you kill your girlfriend."

"Boyfriend," Draco corrected her, relishing in the way her eye twitched.

"This one's lost," the younger one whispered.

"What do you mean, 'lost?' I never said I wasn't open to the idea." These words dramatically boosted the moods of the ladies at the door. The younger brunette even cracked a small smile. "Heaven, huh? I could go for that, but I don't really trust in this whole religion thing."

"Well, you should," the youngest said, pulling out a card from her stack of pamphlets and offering it to Draco. "It's better to put your faith in Christ than in the hands of a gay lover. You could come to our church next Sunday and see for yourself." Draco took the card and pocketed it. _I'll burn it later._

"I don't really know how to be faithful," Draco mumbled. He hoped Harry didn't hear those words; there would be questions later.

"You can start by reading the Bible," the eldest lady chirped, handing one to Draco with all speed. _This is the big chance. _The pale vampire held the book lightly, keeping his eyes on the green cover but focusing on the rhythmic thumping of their hearts. He tried not to smile as his eyes began to glow red and his snake-like fangs began to extend. The women didn't notice. "You should probably start with the book of Mark."

"Thank you," Draco said curtly, "Mark, is it…" He opened the book to a random page.

And then he dropped it. A small choking noise fled his throat.

"Sir?" the youngest asked, slightly affronted. Draco paid her no mind. He let their combined heartbeats lull him for another moment… before letting himself fall flat on his face, twitching his body a couple times after impact just for effect. Alarmed, the older woman pulled the younger one back. "Are you alright?" Draco could hear Harry creeping up from behind; curiosity had obviously overcome his desire to stay out of it.

Already pleased with his acting skills, Draco smirked and let a harsh hiss slide from his lips, attempting to imitate Harry's Parseltongue. The ladies at the door took another step back. _Twitch. Twitch. _Draco forced his face to bear no emotion as he slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position, flashing his red eyes and needle-sharp fangs at the women.

Draco opened his eyes and mouth as wide as he could and….

_"You can't have this one!" _Draco roared, absolutely adoring their high pitched screams as the ladies bolted back down the driveway, skirts bobbing frantically behind them.

Harry fell to his knees… and laughed. "That was brilliant!" he chortled. High on his success, Draco got back on his feet and dusted his cloak, smiling like a maniac. Harry dashed forward to give him a tight hug. "Cruel, but brilliant!"

"I know," Draco laughed. "And you love me for it, don't you?" Still laughing, Harry nodded and buried his face in Draco's cold chest.

Draco suddenly became aware of how very cold Harry was, how cold they both were. He wrapped his arms around his precious Gryffindor, feeling the clamminess of his skin right through the thick robes. It was with a sudden jolt that he realized he was just as cold, and that they would only get colder and weaker until the next shipment of blood came in…

"Say," Draco whispered. "Did you know it usually takes three minutes to run all the way down the driveway?" Harry's laughter died as he listened. "And there are so many large trees to block the view of the road." Harry must have realized what he was talking about, because he was off Draco in a flash.

"Wasn't it bad enough to kill that homeless boy?" he demanded, in a strangled whisper. "We can hold out for a couple days."

"Really?" Draco asked carefully, taking in every exposed part of Harry's body; the slick black hair, the stark white skin, the reddened lips, the dark circles under his eyes, the cold blue blood vessels… "Because you look like shit." Completely thrown off by Draco's harsh assessment of his appearance, Harry's mouth feel open. For a moment it looked like he was going to yell, but his expression quickly faded into defeat.

"So do you," he admitted quietly. "What do you suggest?"

"I think we should grab those girls before they make it the rest of the way down the road."

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Oh my. More murder! Sorry I took so long getting this chapter up. Review or I'll go a full year before updating again! ... I kid. 


	4. Letters and Plot Thickener

_**A Different Kind of Hero- By Ceilidh Clemens, Characters © JKR**_

**_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_** I'm sorry it took so long! Please call off the assassins! Summer heat, work, lack of sleep, writer's block, and carpal tunnel problems because I TYPE TOO MUCH have really slowed this story down. Heck, I even forgot the original storyline and had to rethink the entire thing. Had to cut out Harry and Draco being murderers, because I'm just not in the mood to write that unpleasantness.

* * *

**Chapter 4- Letters and Plot Thickener**

"We're back," Draco called as he hung up his robe. Noticing a forgotten blood splatter on the hem of his thick black pants, he quickly whispered, "_Scourgify_." The dark Gryffindor at his side quickly did the same to his robes.

"Where'd you guys run off to?" Granger's voice carried from the kitchen. "Year tea is cold!" Harry dashed into the kitchen without meeting Draco's eye. He was being very quiet; Draco only hoped that Harry wasn't too upset about what they'd done a few minutes ago. It was only on Draco's insistence that Harry had taken that girl. The green-eyed vampire had hesitated for far too long; Harry's victim had nearly died of fright in his grasp by the time he decided to bite. _He's still too compassionate for his own good. Doesn't he realize he's a predator now?_

"Tea. Right," Draco said noncommittally, sauntering into the kitchen. _Not like tea is going to do Harry and I any good. _Harry was leaning against the window, tea in hand, looking very empty despite being full. Draco paid no mind to the mortals in his presence, whom he only tolerated in case he needed an emergency dinner. The pale Slytherin slid to Harry's side and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Cheer up," he whispered.

"I'm a murderer," Harry breathed. It was so quiet, Granger and Weasley couldn't have possibly heard him. "First that boy, now those women." _Think fast…_

"But they're still alive," Draco purred, leaning onto his boyfriend's chest. "In your blood and in your memory." Harry remained closed to the world. Irritated by his boyfriend's emo behavior, Draco kissed his way up to Harry's ear and drew a sharp squeak from the Gryffindor by biting into Harry's sensitive cartilage.

"Oi! Lovebirds!" came a sharp bellow. Hissing in surprise, both vampires jumped away from each other, eyeing Weasley (and his eye) with bewildered expressions. "Let the owls in, won't you?"

Draco felt stupid as he turned his gray eyes back to the window, against which three owls were scratching impatiently. He'd been so busy molesting Harry that he hadn't even noticed the guests. "Right," he said numbly, opening the window wide. It had barely registered in his head that these were school owls until Granger gave a soft squeal of glee.

"Our Hogwarts letters!" she exclaimed, bobbing her unusually untidy mess of brown hair. In unison, the owls landed on the table and extended their parchment-laden legs.

"Three of them?" Weasley whispered. Draco felt a sinking feeling in his gut. Either the school owls had found Harry, or Headmistress McGonagall had overlooked his now widely publicized vampirism. Harry stared numbly at his sleeping snake necklace while Weasley and Granger quickly relieved the owls of their burdens and offered them some water.

"Mine," Granger muttered, flipping over one piece of parchment. Her gentle brown eyes had a peculiar sparkle in them that Draco hadn't seen since that one time she'd bopped him in the nose. Perhaps she always looked like that when she received her Hogwarts letters; Draco had no idea. "And this one is yours, Ron."

"The last one's for you, Draco," Weasley said carefully, holding out the last slip of paper. The blond frowned, taking the parchment, hoping against hope that the Headmistress knew what she was doing. "Do you reckon McGonagall's gone nuts?"

"It's possible," Draco assured Weasley, turning the paper over to read it. His eyes skimmed the page. A list of the courses he'd registered for, a list of the books and supplies he'd need, a brief notice about how security's been stepped up another notch… not a word mentioning what they would do about Draco's unusual un-lifestyle. "Okay, it's quite likely."

Harry said nothing, keeping his gaze on the ground. Either his lovely new snake necklace was behaving oddly, or he was bursting to say something but unsure of when and how to say it.

"Too bad my new eyes can't see into McGonagall's brain," Weasley said cheerfully. Granger chewed her toast with a most peculiar expression. She failed to notice that the sleeve of her robe had a large smear of strawberry jelly on it.

"Perhaps the Headmistress doesn't know that you're undead?" Granger ventured to guess, trying not to look at Harry.

"It doesn't matter either way," Draco sighed. Harry's eyes flickered up for a split second before turning away again. Granger, Weasley, and the owls stared blankly as Draco pocketed the parchment. "I can't go. I'd feel like a real git if I left Harry here alone. It'd be like abandoning a puffskein kitten."

"How, exactly, do I resemble a puffskein kitten?" Harry queried, stunned out of his dour mood. He looked almost scandalized at being compared to a purring ball of fluff. Draco smirked and pulled the miffed Gryffindor to his gray sweater-clad chest, making sure his chilly breath tickled Harry's sensitive ears.

"You're cutest when you're rubbed the wrong way."

Granger and Weasley made up for Harry's inability to blush. Weasley was the first to snap out of it. "But won't it be kind suspicious if you withdraw from Hogwarts so suddenly?"

"Not as suspicious as skipping sunlit classes or preying upon my dorm mates." The blond vampire allowed his thoughts to drift. "Not as suspicious as murdering the opposing Quidditch team on the field." He hesitated for a moment, then allowed his patent-pending smirk to sneak back onto his face. "Then again, people have come to expect that of me…"

"Arrogant git," Weasley coughed.

"And just imagine," Draco continued, raising his voice slightly, "if they caught me in the restricted section, trying to find any information that might help bring Niles and Voldemort down. That's what the two of you are going to do in my stead."

That certainly shut them up. Draco smirked. "We have a mission now, you know. Regaining our humanity and slaughtering the Dark Lord wanker." Silence fell around the table. Yes, Hogwarts would be a good place to find ways to hunt both Niles and Voldemort.

Harry broke the silence. "Thanks for the mental image," he groaned, wrinkling his nose and massaging his forehead in disgust. He was clearly imagining the horrors that lie under Voldemort's robes. Granger and Weasley suddenly groaned as well. Draco smirked. It was so tempting to push his power into their minds, force them to see obscene images of Voldemort- but after a moment's thought, he realized this was just too disgusting, even for his superior mind.

He swiftly dismissed his thoughts of Voldemort's sexual anatomy by pouncing at Harry and kissing his catch. This seemed to effectively erase the nasty image from Harry's mind as well, and the dark-haired wizard laughed and leaned into Draco's sweater-covered chest. The master of the house smirked triumphantly. _I've erased both Voldemort and the murdered bible-thumpers from his mind without a single spell. In your face!_

"Ahem," Weasley coughed. "Do you have to do that in front of us?" Draco withdrew, his smirk failing. _Why do Weasley and Granger have to be such prudes?_ Draco thought with annoyance, overlooking the fact that he was far more of a prude than they could ever be. He wanted to request permission to snog behind Weasley's back instead, but he kept his snide to himself. Abashed but not blushing, Harry pried himself from Draco's grasp and pretended to speak in Parseltongue to his sleeping necklace.

An awkward silence had completely taken over the room.

The former Malfoy fidgeted, wanting to continue the discussion about researching vampires (or at least continue kissing Harry) but every noise suddenly seemed ten times louder than before and any sudden movement would make people stare at him. Granger, her cheeks flushed red, opened her mouth to say something but quickly shut it. Weasley looked around helplessly for a moment, then promptly began staring through the table. It seemed nobody wanted to be the one to start the conversation again.

Draco leaned against the counter and watched Harry do absolutely nothing. He couldn't stand this kind of silence. The pale pureblood gathered his thoughts, tried without success to catch Harry's eye, and opened his mouth to speak, but-

"This is just stupid," Harry spontaneously cut in. All eyes, magical or owl or otherwise, turned to him. For a moment, Harry quailed under their gaze, but the (idiotic) Gryffindor spirit within him flared up and he only smiled. "Draco, dropping out of school! It's just stupid, even if you're a bloodsucking social reject who can never show his face under the sun again."

It took everybody a moment to digest it. Granger was the first one to look pissed, followed quickly by Draco and Weasley.

"_This_, from the guy who wanted to skip seventh year to chase inanimate objects?" Harry's smile wavered for a moment.

"You know damn well that those horcruxes are more important than-"

"What do you want me to do?" Draco snarled, ignoring Harry's obvious attempt at crushing his ego. "Leave you here all alone to destroy my house and starve?"

"No, of course," Harry whispered. Something in his voice suddenly sounded wicked and strange. Draco didn't like the wicked glint that had overshadowed the innocent sparkle in his boyfriend's green eyes. Granger and Weasley seemed to notice it too. Even the owls turned away from their tea to stare at Harry incredulously.

"What are you planning…?" Weasley asked slowly.

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but Granger hissed, "No, you idiot!"

"You don't even know what I was going to say!" Harry sputtered. Draco would have laughed if Granger didn't have that _look_ in her eyes.

"Oh, but I DO know," the witch whispered. "You're going to sneak into school to just to be with Draco and do research, aren't you?"

"No!" Draco and Weasley barked at the same time. Draco bit back a snarl. _That freeloading wanker stole my words!_ But he quickly calmed himself down again. It wouldn't look very good on his part if he ripped open Weasley's throat right in front of Harry.

"Yes," Harry replied with ease. "Similar things been done before."

Draco took a deep (and unnecessary) breath. Sneaking into Hogwarts is a task far easier said than done, a fact he realized in sixth year. "You really are turning into a dark wizard." Harry wrinkled his nose in disgust and turned away from them.

"Just because I borrow ideas from dark Wizards, that doesn't make me one." Granger seemed to look nervously to her left. Draco assumed it had something to do with her borrowing the idea of the Dark Mark to make her enchanted coins.

"No, but using the _Petricrusectum Incendimortalus_ just might make you a Dark Wizard," Draco whispered. It was a spell Harry had invented in a split second of pure rage and only used twice; the spell that petrified a victim, inflicted Cruciatus-like pain, and carved a dark mark on the person's chest with green fire. Harry pretended not to hear.

"I already know a perfect hiding place," Draco's beau continued brightly. "One where, even if someone knew where I was, they wouldn't be able to reach me."

"The Room of Requirement?" Draco scoffed. "Someone will find a way in. It's used more often than you think; you noticed when I occasionally hid in there, but it'll be even easier for someone to find out you live in there you if you never even leave the room."

"I'm not that stupid," Harry snapped. "I'm talking about a place that only a Parselmouth could enter." Though his plan suddenly become crystal clear to everyone in the room, Harry paused for drama and let a lizard-like grin consume his youthful face. "The Chamber of Secrets would make an excellent year-long hideout."

Granger shook her head, staring at Harry with wide eyes, completely blown away. Ron's eyes were narrowed; he was clearly trying to see into Harry's mind and failing.

"Don't be stupid," Draco muttered, for lack of anything else to say. "You can't seriously live in the chamber for a whole school year."

"Why not?" Harry shrugged. "The place is huge. I can find a nice little corner to conjure a bed in, and I can sneak out at night with the invisibility cloak to see you guys and visit the library."

"What about Moaning Myrtle?" Granger asked unexpectedly. Draco gave her a curious look.

"What _about_ Moaning Myrtle?" the master of the house asked briskly. "How is she involved in this?"

"She lives in the bathroom that leads to the Chamber," Granger explained, her features becoming calm once more despite Draco's slight agitation. "Even if Harry's invisible when he enters and leaves, she's bound to notice if the sinks start shifting around again. I don't think you can wipe a ghost's memory."

"I'd have to let her in on it and make her swear to keep it secret," Harry mused. Weasley, flabbergasted, simply shook his head and said nothing. "Hey, don't just toss out the idea like yesterday's Daily Prophet. Tom Riddle managed to live there for a school year, even when everyone was in a panic searching for the Chamber of Secrets and the Heir of Slytherin."

"Tom Riddle was an _evil genius_," Weasley explained, emphasizing 'genius'. "He was loads smarter than you are now. You're _not_ the Dark Lord, Harry!"

"Yet," Draco coughed innocently.

"Just because it worked for him, that doesn't mean it'll work for you!" Weasley continued haughtily. "He didn't have to drink blood or do research! He didn't have to change his clothes, or shower, or even go to the bathroom! He didn't have to meet other people to plan things. He never even had to leave the chamber, since he had Ginny to do all his dirty work for him."

A light died in Weasley's blue eyes for a brief moment, and Draco frowned, recalling that Ginny Weasley had died when the Death Eaters destroyed the Weasley home. Died right along with the Weasley parents, Bill and his fiancé, and the twins. _That's how war goes. _Weasley slid down in his chair, letting his fiery red hair fall over his darkened eyes. "It's a lot easier to hide a diary than it is to hide a person."

The fell to nearly unnatural silence once again. Granger's eyes were misty; the witch was clearly lost in her memories of Ginny. Harry's eyes had also grown dark and distant. Though Draco had no fond memories of the witch Ginny, or any of the Weasleys, the morose silence unnerved him. He had no idea how to change the subject without sounding rude. A year ago, he would have happily laughed at the fall of the Weasleys, but now he knew what a painful thing it was to lose one's family.

A loud screech came from just outside the window. Draco almost laughed at the welcome interruption. Another owl! Draco didn't even bother looking toward the window; he just flicked his wrist at the latch, popped the window open, and let the bird fly in.

"Another Hogwarts letter?" Granger gasped, also welcoming the change of mood. "The ministry couldn't possibly know-"

"It can't be for me," Harry hissed, staring at the letter as if it would explode with bubotuber puss. "It can't be. If they knew I was here, they'd be sending Aurors, not class schedules." Weasley whisked the letter away from the owl and allowed the bird to join it's fellows, who were by now gathered around a cup of tea and hooting softly as if gossiping.

"It's not for you," Weasley whispered, before even opening the letter. "It has that warning on it that first years aren't allowed brooms…"

"It must be a mistake," Granger said firmly. "The owl must have gotten lost on its way to a first year." Draco shifted his eyes to the spotted brown bird, who didn't look lost at all and seemed to feel quite at home drinking Harry's tea. There was a sinking feeling his gut, but he couldn't organize his scattered suspicions into anything rational.

"No way!" Weasley gasped, staring at the opened letter as if it were a Monster Book of Monsters.

"What?" Harry, Draco, and Granger asked at once, crowding behind Weasley's back. The red-haired wizard lowered the letter and fixed his suspicious eyes on Harry and Draco.

"What did you guys do last night?" he asked harshly. Silence reigned for five uncomfortable seconds. Harry had a peculiar look on his face, as if a snake had just asked him why Eve ate the forbidden fruit.

"Just went walking," Draco said swiftly, cutting off Harry just as the Gryffindor opened his mouth. Suspicion danced in the eyes of the mortals. Draco couldn't help it but notice Harry's hand creeping closer to his wand.

"Did you invite Niles' daughter to live here?" It took a moment for Draco to register the meaning of these words…

"No, I didn't. Why would I? You didn't either, did you, Harry?" The Gryffindor shook his head, bright bottle-green eyes betraying his confusion.

"Then why, exactly, have we received a letter inviting Adonis Chiku to attend Hogwarts?"

He'd barely finished talking when someone knocked loudly on the front door.

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**_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_** Onoes! Have the men in white coats come to take Harry away to the happy place with padded walls? Read & Review please! 


	5. All the base are belong to Adyn

_**A Different Kind of Hero- By Ceilidh Clemens, Characters © JKR**_

**Chapter 5- All the base are belong to Adyn**

"Hello, Draco!"

"NO."

The orange-eyed vampire bit her lip and frowned. Draco watched her with disdain. She was dressed as oddly as ever. Her shirt was a skimpy little bodice that appeared to be weaved from the rubber of a discarded tire. She sported a white ten gallon hat with a fake phoenix feather poking out of one side and a fishing hook lodged in the other. Her tattered blue jeans were massive and held up by a red ribbon instead of a belt. Her left shoe was far too small, her right far too large. She had a ragged gray backpack, reinforcing Draco's notion that she intended to move into the Malfoy manor. Every time Draco saw her, it became increasingly obvious that she didn't have a single bit of clothing to call her own, and she stole a new outfit every day.

"But Adyn-"

"NO."

Looking cute wouldn't do her any good. Draco was quite capable of ignoring the pout on her lips, the red tears that began to form in her massive orange eyes, and the rain that was soaking her to the bone.

"We agreed to work together. Nobody said anything about living together."

"But-"

"I already have three freeloaders living with me. You hear that? Three. I don't need another."

"It'd only be for a week!" Adonis gasped, her bloody tears meshing with the rain on her cheeks. Draco watched with mild fascination as the red trickled down her face, dancing with the rainwater, forming swirls and shapes like the Nile River. "Just until school starts. Adyn will pay you back!"

"No."

"You have my letter!" Adonis pointed out. "Know why? Adyn had to give headmistress an address to find her at. It's only a week. Just one mongoosin' week!"

"But-"

"One. Week." Adonis' eyes seemed to swell and sparkle unnaturally.

"But-"

"Pleeeeeeeease!"

"You know what? Fine! _Come in!_" Draco snarled, sarcasm heavy on his pale lips. "Make yourself at home! Eat everything in my fridge and larder! Trash the place! Stay forever! I don't care!" He found his voice rising to volumes that might have damaged human eardrums; he also found that he didn't have a damn. Adyn was staring at him with wide eyes, flinching and moving backwards at his every syllable. "Set up camp under my bed! Terrorize the guests that were actually invited! Molest my boyfriend, while you're at it! _I-DON'T-CARE!"_

With that, he slammed the door in her face as politely as possible.

"Thank you!" chimed a bright voice behind him.

Draco whirled on the spot and was horrified to see Adonis standing two feet behind him, taking off her shoes and hanging up her hat on Draco's coat rack. "No!" Draco began to shout, but Adyn had already ran up the stairs and vanished behind the corner. Cursing wildly, Draco decided to call upon his boyfriend for reinforcements.

Draco stomped his way into the kitchen, not the least bit surprised to see that everyone was staring at him.

"Problem," Draco said simply.

"You invited her in," Granger stated. _Damn, she heard me?_

"I was being sarcastic!"

"You still invited her in. Now she's free to come and go as she likes. If you kick her out, she'll come right back in." Disgusted, Draco flung himself into the seat next to Harry. Since becoming vampires, neither he nor Harry had ever tried to enter a house uninvited. He'd completely forgotten that a vampire couldn't cross anyone's threshold without being invited first.

"That's it," Draco whispered. "I'm gonna go to the head of the Department for Control of Magical creatures and-"

"-Get me caught?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. Muttering obscene words under his breath, Draco lurched to his feet and stomped out of the room.

"Adonis?" Draco called, listening to his own voice echoing off the ceiling. Cursing once more, Draco marched up the staircase, making sure to stomp extra loudly. "Where are you hiding?"

"In the other guest room. Come and find me!" Adonis called back, poking her out of the room at the far end of the hall.

"No," Draco growled, jogging to the door. There were only a billion guest rooms, but the proud vampire couldn't stand the idea of Adonis being in one of them. Especially since this was the room Granger had temporarily adopted. "We need to talk."

"About what?" Adonis called from under the bed. Draco groaned. _What is this kid thinking?_ He sauntered to the side of the bed and peeked underneath, only to be greeted by the seat of Adyn's pants. "Wrong side of the bed, Dragon." The black vampire rolled over and gave the frustrated blond a lazy wink. "It's cozy under here…"

"This is Granger's room." Adonis's bright eyes lit up.

"Breakfast in bed?"

"No. No, you may not eat _any_ of my guests…" Draco tried without success to bite back his rage, but his voice was brought back down to a reasonable tone. "And by the way, you are NOT a guest. You're not welcome here."

"Too bad," Adonis purred, rolling around on the carpet like a kitten on catnip. "You invited Adonis in. Now she can come and go as she pleases. Besides," she began to speak quickly, since Draco had pulled out his wand, "Adonis can help you."

"We already agreed on this!" Draco snarled, grabbing her by the wrist and attempting to drag her out from under the bed. She held tight onto the support; Draco was alarmed to find that he couldn't move her an inch, but he didn't let it show on his face. He just dropped her hand and acted as if he hadn't really been trying. "You help Harry and I find Niles-"

"Adyn meant the bodies." Draco couldn't hide his dread this time. It seemed that all his muscles seized up. Adyn didn't seem to notice. "Dragon doesn't know much about disposing of bodies yet, does he? Any old mongoose would be able to find those ladies. And the boy the other day."

Cold terror had sank into Draco's being, like a ghost too lazy to move out of the way. Thoughts went spinning and spilling through his mind, almost too quickly to sort them through. _She knows what we did. If I tell the Ministry, she'll tell them what Harry and I have done. She knows a better way to dispose of bodies? No, there won't be any more bodies, because Harry and I need to exercise our self control! I can't kick her out! But I can't let her stay, she'll just be another mouth to feed and we're low enough on blood already!_

"Adyn won't be too much trouble," the little vampire whispered. Her orange eyes, though sparkling innocently, seemed to drill into Draco's mind and drain away his will. "She can hunt for herself. Adonis just needs a place to stay waiting for school to start, and she told Headmistress McGonagall she would be here."

"You can't stay," Draco said firmly. "I don't know you at all. I can't have you here, endangering us and leaching off us." Adonis's orange eyes narrowed, and in a whirl of blond hair the child was suddenly standing behind Draco. The wizard hopped to his feet, turning his wand on the creature, suddenly afraid that she might be faster than any spell he could cast.

Her hair, still dripping rain, ran tangled down her bodice and shadowed her eyes as she stared coldly at the taller vampire. "What do you want to know?"

"I- what?" Draco quipped suspiciously, still keeping his wand trained on her.

"Adyn will tell you all she knows about herself if you ask the right questions. You can know me." She casually turned her back on him and set her backpack by the doorway, blatantly ignoring his wand. "Adyn will…" Her voice suddenly softened. "Adyn will not harm anyone in the house. Adyn will tell all her secrets and teach how to dispose of corpses. Adyn will not make a mess of the house nor try to learn Dragon and Vorgulmortis's mongoosin' secrets." Her eyes briefly roamed through the room. Her expression was so vacant, Draco suddenly wondered if she was under the Imperius Curse. But then the light returned to her eyes and she gave him a mischievous grin. "Adyn will sleep under Granger's bed."

"No, you won't!" Draco tried to insist, but Adonis was suddenly gone from where she'd been standing. Keeping his wand drawn, Draco hurried after her. Unless his eyes were lying, the orange blur that was Adonis was headed towards the kitchen.

His head began to ache as his thoughts still rushed wildly though his mind. _What can I do? She's stronger and faster than me! If she tries to attack anybody, I won't be able to stop her! She's only going into first year at Hogwarts, so she can't know much magic yet. But how do I know she isn't lying about her age? How do I know she hasn't already been through school under another name?_

As he approached the kitchen, he was relieved to hear calm talking rather than screams. "It's hard, isn't it?" Adonis was asking somebody. "Trying to be a mongoosin' Dark Lord." Draco crossed into the kitchen, still keeping his wand out. Weasley was using one magic eye to work on his crossword puzzle and another to watch the newcomer. Hermione had set down her tea and wasn't even bothering to pretend she wasn't eavesdropping. Harry was leaned against the jade counter with Adonis a foot away, chatting as if the two were the best of friends.

"Yeah," Harry said slowly. "It's quite a task."

"Indubitably. So much to do, and…" Adonis paused, purposefully dragging her eyes slowly from person to person. Weasley, Draco, Granger… "So few people to do it for you. Are these _all_ the minions Vorgulmortis has?"

"Even I can't build an army overnight," Harry muttered. He turned his lovely green eyes back to Draco. "What's the plan, Dragon?" All eyes turned to Draco, even the eye Weasley had been using for his crossword.

Draco was caught in the spotlight, and he didn't like it a bit. "Er," he started helplessly.

"What's this about being a Dark Lord?" Granger interrupted, her voice disturbingly neutral. "Is that why you two have been sneaking off so often?"

"Er…" Harry did a perfect imitation of Draco. "Can we discuss this later?" _Without Adonis_, Harry mouthed. Granger pursed her lips and bobbed her fluffy brown head before turning back to Draco.

"Is she going to stay?" Weasley asked quietly.

"It's," Draco mumbled, racking his brain for options. Out of habit, he stared at his shoelaces and avoided the gaze of his companions. "It's not like I can kick her out, and she knows too much to just set her loose." Suddenly at peace with his decision, he looked up at Adonis with a toothy grin. "Sorry, Ms. Chiku, but I'm afraid we're going to have to kidnap you."

"Wheeeeeeeee!" The little vampire clapped gleefully and did an odd little skipping dance, comically tripping on her own shoes. Weasley looked ready to complain, but stern looks from Harry and Granger made him stay silent. "All your base are belong to Adonis! I get to sleep under Granger's bed!"

"What?" Granger gasped.

"Don't worry," Adonis giggled, apparently brimming with delight. "Adonis doesn't bite… hard… Unless you like it that way." Weasley's ears and freckled cheeks were beginning to turn pink. Sensing danger, Draco quickly escorted Adonis into a seat and poured everyone a fresh cup of tea.

"So!" Granger said loudly, forcing the attention over to her. "Adonis! If you're going to be staying…" Pause. "… Under my bed… Then maybe we'd better get to know each other a bit better. Where are you from?"

Adonis blinked slowly and took a large gulp of tea before answering. "Australia," she said slowly.

"That's specific," Weasley scoffed.

"Melbourne," Adonis elaborated, her tone a bit more firm.

"How old are you?" Harry cut in. The black vampire seemed confused about the question, biting her lip and looking to the side as if trying to recall what an age was. "When were you born?"

"October 23rd, 2043."


End file.
